It just landed in Silicon Valley…

Somewhere between Omaha and Silicon Valley, Warren Buffett’s investment philosophy picked up a few new tricks.

And… a taste for artificial intelligence.

That brings us to Markel Group, the insurance and investment company led by Tom Gayner.

Markel follows a familiar recipe: insurance businesses, → long-term investments, → and a steady supply of cash to put to work.

In fact, Gayner’s very first stock purchase for Markel back in 1990 was Berkshire Hathaway.

A student who bought shares in his teacher.

But take a look at Markel’s latest portfolio, and you’ll find something interesting growing on that family tree.

So what happens when Buffett-style investing meets Silicon Valley’s biggest spending spree?

Here’s the story. ⇩

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The Family Portfolio…

Turns out, Baby Berkshire has developed quite an appetite for Big Tech.

Markel’s latest portfolio filing reveals $12.84 billion invested across 145 stocks as of September 30.

And some familiar Silicon Valley names have made themselves right at home.

→ Alphabet $GOOG ( ▼ 0.38% )  : $1.12 billion across two share classes.
→ Amazon $AMZN ( ▲ 1.48% )  : $506 million.
→ Analog Devices $ADI ( ▼ 0.35% )  : $396.6 million.
→ Microsoft $MSFT ( ▼ 2.21% )  : $275.8 million.
→ Texas Instruments $TXN ( ▲ 1.62% )  : $202.8 million.

Together, that’s nearly $2.5 billion in five AI-related companies, or roughly 19% of Markel’s reported stock portfolio.

And here’s the interesting part.

Alphabet alone represents almost 45% of those five positions combined.

But Gayner hasn’t forgotten his roots.

✱ Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A and Class B shares together account for another 12.4% of Markel’s reported portfolio.

So the teacher is still very much in the picture.

Baby Berkshire may be branching into AI. But Buffett is still firmly planted in the portfolio.↓

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Old-School Money, New-School Chips…

Here’s something Buffett would probably appreciate.

Markel’s biggest AI-related holdings were making money long before ChatGPT entered the conversation.

And they have plenty of ways to keep doing it.

→ Alphabet: Google Search, YouTube, and Cloud. AI is both an opportunity and a potential threat to its search business.

→ Amazon: Online shopping, advertising, and AWS. Its cloud customers already need computing power, whether they’re building AI models or running ordinary applications.

→ Microsoft: Windows, Microsoft 365, and Azure. Millions of businesses rely on its software, with AI becoming another product to sell them.

→ Texas Instruments and Analog Devices: Chips for cars, factories, and industrial equipment. Data centers are another growing customer.

The common thread?

These companies have businesses beyond the AI boom.

That doesn’t make them immune to an AI slowdown. Expensive data centers, competition, and lofty expectations can still cause headaches.

But it does help explain why a Buffett-inspired investor might find them interesting.

The AI boom may be the newest branch. The existing businesses are what hold up the tree.↓

The Art of Doing Very Little…

For all that talk about AI changing everything, Tom Gayner’s portfolio reveals something rather old-fashioned.

Patience.

Markel’s latest filing shows that four of its five largest AI-related company positions were left untouched during the third quarter.

→ Amazon: No change.
→ Microsoft: No change.
→ Analog Devices: No change.
→ Texas Instruments: No change.

And Alphabet?

Gayner trimmed its smaller Class A position by 9.1%, while leaving the much larger Class C position untouched.

That’s a remarkably quiet quarter for a portfolio with nearly $2.5 billion tied to five companies participating in the AI boom.

Of course, quarterly filings only show positions at specific dates. They don’t reveal every trade made in between.

But the reported holdings tell us something interesting.

While Wall Street debates whether AI stocks have run too far, Markel’s quarter-end portfolio looks remarkably similar to the one it started with.

Sometimes the most interesting move is the one that never happens. ↓

The Tree Doesn’t Grow Overnight…

Berkshire Hathaway was the first stock Gayner bought for Markel back in 1990.

More than three decades later, it’s still one of the portfolio’s biggest holdings.

And the same portfolio now includes Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and two major chipmakers.

Of course, patience doesn’t guarantee profits. Even excellent businesses can disappoint investors who pay too much for them.

And AI’s enormous growth expectations leave plenty of room for disappointment.

But there’s a useful distinction between buying a company because its industry is exciting and owning one because its underlying business can keep generating value.

The branches may change. The roots still matter.↓

* Sources: Yahoo Finance, November 10, 2026; Markel’s Q3 2026 reported holdings.

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